


Love Well

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Aromantic, Barry Allen eats, M/M, Mick Rory Cooks, aromantic Leonard Snart, spoilers through the finale of LOT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 12:00:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7267327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”<br/>― Virginia Woolf</p>
<p>Answer to tumblr prompt asking for Mick/Barry - wooing with food.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Well

Mick had no interest in the so-called intangible benefits of heroism. Cold hard cash, that's where it was at; money he could trade for goods and services and fun. Up until recently, he'd been satisfied that that's what Len wanted, too, but it seemed like Len had other things, other scores, in mind.

Mick wasn't sure if he should blame the Flash, for murmuring all that crap about there being good in Lenny, or himself, for having gone back in time that time when he'd thought Lenny was dead and told him he was a hero, but he's 100% sure he should blame Lenny, who had always had a weak spot for praise.

Mick would make a joke about Len not being hugged enough as a kid, but he's pretty sure that's actually what happened. 

So here they are, hanging out in STAR Labs in between heists, letting Len get in his hero fix. Thank god it’s a temporary, if recurrent, urge; if Len had tried to go full-on hero, no heists at all, Mick would've had to have Words with him. And given that Mick's still at the point where he can't stop smiling every time he sees Lenny standing there, arrogant and bitchy and alive, that would have been pretty hard to manage to do convincingly.

Mick had liked the rest of the team on the Waverider and all, but after the Incident with the rocket ship he was just as happy to get him and Len back to doing what they did best. He did invite Ray and Sara to visit before they left and he's pretty sure they're going to take them up on it sometime.

In the meantime, Len was arguing up a storm with the heroes about the right way to approach the problem (a goddamn gorilla army - and Mick had thought being on the Waverider was weird), enjoying himself immensely, and Mick was wandering around poking his nose into everything. He didn't expect there'd be anything worth stealing (Len had cased the place first thing and he would've mentioned it) but he figured the fewer surprises there were, the better.

The gym isn't a surprise; neither is the medical bay, the morgue, the energy room, or the prison cells.

The room filled with old pizza boxes and take-out cartons, on the other hand, is definitely a surprise.

"Oh, man, I am _so sorry_ about that!" a voice yelps in his ear. It's the Flash, of course, mask pushed back and blush painting both cheeks. His name is Barry Allen, apparently; Len figured it out some time back and has been blackmailing him with it (good for Len), but Mick's not really the blackmailing sort. Not enough patience. He signed onto Len's deal without a protest. "I really meant to clean this out earlier, but, you know, one thing led to another, and I guess I just forgot..."

"I ain't judging," Mick grunts, his habitual reply when someone demonstrates bad manners or criminal behavior in front of him and tries to apologize or misdirect about it. Except...

Except, yeah, he is kinda judging. 

You’d still have to measure the amount of grease still in the room by the gallon, and the food’s all already been _eaten_.

"How long have you been keeping your take out boxes in here?"

Barry's blush deepens. "Um. I empty it about once a month? I have a very high metabolism."

"And you fill it with...lots of pizza?"

Barry shrugs. "I need the calories," he says airly, like he isn't admitting to terrible crimes against nature and normal person food. "It works, you know?"

Mick just shakes his head. Barry's almost as bad as Lenny had been, way back when they'd first met - and Lenny'd never tasted a tomato in its natural non-ketchup or marinara form before he'd met Mick. 

But it's not Mick's problem.

\------------------------

It starts as a 'thank you' for Barry having saved Lenny's ass during the thing with the gorilla army.

Mick had insisted that they go to his favorite safe house, the one in the abandoned restaurant in the slum district, where he'd cleaned the kitchen up until it was respectable and paid one of the prostitutes next door twice her nightly rate to come by once a week to scrub it up and keep it ready for use. 

He'd thought about it - Barry liked pizza, obviously, so sticking with cheese and tomato and starches was clearly a safe bet. So he prepped eight extra-large pans and set three large pots going for the sauce. He chopped the tomatoes, nearly a barrelful, and browned the ground meat over a large commercial range. He rolled out sheet after sheet of pasta dough and got to layering like it was a puzzle.

Len drifts in after a few hours. "Hey, you're making lasagna," he says, pleased, and tries to steal a tomato.

"So sad," Mick says.

Len pauses with the tomato slice halfway to his mouth.

"All that effort to regrow your hand, and you're just throwing it away." Mick sighs. "Well, that's your choice."

Len wisely returns the tomato to the pile.

Then he gives Mick puppy eyes until Mick ungraciously concedes with a huff and say, "You can have a spoon of the meat sauce. One spoon."

Len sneaks some ricotta too when he thinks Mick isn't looking, but a man's got to keep his dignity as a thief and Mick's whipped up too much ricotta anyway. Maybe he can use the remainder for cheesecake if Len doesn't keep stuffing his face.

He says as much next time Len sidles into the kitchen with an innocent look that he is three decades too late to use on Mick. It works like a charm to keep Len at bay. 

When the lasagna is done - bursting with farm fresh tomatoes, meat sauce carefully seasoned, fresh pasta melting into layer after layer of delicious cheese, broiled brown on top and glistening in light of the kitchen lamps – Mick leaves one for a hungry-looking Len to descend upon (he's somehow actually made himself look thinner, like the effort of waiting till the food's goddamn done has caused him to start wilting out of neglect - only a drama queen like Len...) and packs the other seven into the back of his motorcycle, in the weather controlled box where they usually store high-end fragile goodies from heists.

He goes off to the empty parking lot behind STAR Labs and fires off his heat gun a few times. Even does it in Morse code – gets as far as B - A - R - R before the Flash zooms in and comes to a screeching halt in confusion when he realizes Mick isn't actually setting anything on fire.

"Hey, Sparky," Mick says. "You finishing off your shift?"

"Uh, I was," Barry says cautiously. "What's...up?"

"Wanted to say thanks for the save last week," Mick tells him. "Since his royal icicle won't ever do it."

"Oh, don't mention it –" Barry starts.

"So I got you dinner," Mick interrupts and pulls out one of the covered pans. 

He can see Barry's face light up at the mention of dinner and then his eyes go half lidded in sensual pleasure as the smell of the lasagna rolls out.

"Oh, man, that...that smells really good. You really don’t need to –” He pauses, inhales. Visibly changes his mind. “You know what, I'd be happy to have some. I'm _starving_."

Mick snorts and pulls out a fork. "It's all for you," he tells Barry. "I made another one for Len and me. Figured with your appetite you'd need it."

Barry beams with delight. "Thanks!" he chirps and suddenly there's a blur of motion over the increasingly lighter tray that Mick's holding. There's a lot of rapid fire moans of delight and "Oh my god"s thrown in there, too; it's not unlike listening to a soundtrack of a porno on fast forward.

When it's done, Barry looks regretful at having to put down the fork, but otherwise deeply satisfied. "That was really great, Heatwave," he says. "Like, really great. I'm not just saying that; more like I want the number of the place you bought that from asap, because my toes were seriously curling and - wait what are you..?" 

Mick pulls out the second pan. 

"There's more?" Barry says faintly. He's literally quivering with joy. "You got me _two_? Oh –" he tilts his head to the side. "Uh, yeah, good point, sorry Cisco. Heatwave – ah, Mick, I guess?" Mick nods permission. "Won't you come inside? Cisco wants to try some lasagna. He says there's no way it tastes as good as I'm making it sound." 

Mick smirks, hefts his bag, and follows Barry inside. Barry doesn't ask what's in his bag, especially when Mick pulls out some additional plates and forks and knives for Cisco and Caitlin. He even takes a piece himself to prove there's been no tampering. He has to admit this was definitely one of his better iterations of the dish. Go him.

He'll have to steal tomatoes from that particular organic farm again. Maybe he can convince Len that it's sufficiently heroic enough to just give them money to grow more – Len's usually pretty easy when there's food on the line...

Barry's expression when Mick pulls out the third pan is priceless.

"Man, how many of those did you bring?" Cisco asks.

"Seven," Mick says. 

"Holy crap," Barry says, already two-thirds done with the third one. "I...I think I'm full? Maybe? I've basically forgotten what that feels like."

"Take another bite," Mick suggests.

"No, I can't, I really can't." 

"You're full," Caitlin declares. Mick isn't so sure.

"I brought ricotta cheesecake for dessert," he says. "Got any room for that?"

Barry moans, but consents to eating the half cheesecake that Len did not lay claim to. Mick is pleased to see that he can't quite finish the last few bites, even as he's overflowing with rapturous compliments.

"I'll put the rest in the fridge," Cisco offers. "You can eat some tomorrow, and maybe – and I know this is weird for you - the day after that too."

"It is weird for me," Barry agrees with a grin. "Say, Mick, I don't think I caught the name of the place you got this from, what is it again?"

"Didn't get it," Mick says, virtuously popping the last bit of cheesecake in his mouth. "Made it."

"You _made_ it?" they all exclaim.

"It's not like it's hard," he says. "Lasanga's a piece of cake once you finish rolling out the dough."

"Hand rolled pasta dough," Cisco says faintly. "Did you make the sauce from scratch too?"

"How else do you make sauce?" Mick asks with a frown. "Used up a whole barrel of tomatoes for it - there's some pretty nice organic farms outside of Central and Keystone, if you want their names, though, and I can give you the name of my favorite butcher..."

"Oh, I don't cook," Barry says, still starry eyed. "But you, you _clearly_ do. Bravo. Full marks. _Encore_. But, like, not immediately."

"Why are you a criminal?" Caitlin asks, polishing off her slice of cheesecake. "This is amazing; I'm sure you could get a job in a restaurant..."

These people have clearly never worked in a restaurant. Mick, who's held several kitchen jobs in between heists and prison - line order cook, sous chef, pastry chef, whatever they'd take him as - knows far better how much effort is involved in restaurant work and just shakes his head. 

"I'm not a big fan of work," he tells them. "This is just to keep me fed, s'all." And Len, of course, but he doesn't add that. "Anyway, I'd better be on my way."

Barry waves enthusiastically and Mick goes away pleased. Next time they do a joint mission, he feels confident that the Flash team will do their utmost to get Len and Mick away clean and unharmed.

\---------------------------------

The second time isn't even about Barry; it's about Len. 

Namely, how much of a dick Len can be sometimes. Oh, they get away with the score, but Mick was _not_ a big fan of having to pretend to be Sara's husband, and it was Len’s plan from start to finish. It's weird, s'what it was. Women are all well and good for a spot of fun, but Mick's romantic preferences are pretty firmly on the other side of the aisle and Len knows it. Nearly a week of playing kissyface with a woman to distract the mark is not his idea of a good time. 

Sara swans off back to the Waverider with the artefact that they were helping her steal, and Mick meets up out back with Len and Lisa, who were helping themselves to some of the other, less mystical items from the treasury.

Lisa kisses them both soundly goodbye and peels off with her portion and Mick turns on Len with a glare.

"I got you a chalice," Len says, offering it up like it's going to save his ass.

"Sara thinks we're dating; did you know that?" Mick says flatly. Though he does take the chalice. It's a pretty cool chalice, all gems and glitter. Hefty, too. You could smash someone's head in with a chalice like this.

He gives Len a meaningful look. Len takes a step back. 

Smart man.

"She _does_?" Len says, wrinkling his nose. "Why?"

"Well, you flirted with her a whole bunch, then came home with me," Mick says, amused despite himself at how much like a scared rabbit Len looks like right now. "And I just spent a week telling her I only date guys. Plus the fact that we took one room on the Waverider."

"I wasn't gonna trust anyone else on that ship at first," Len objected. "And we split up rooms later on, didn’t we?"

"Tragic break-up."

"You're _kidding_."

"Wish I was."

Len shakes his head with the long-suffering expression of someone who doesn't know what romance is and has never been given an adequate explanation of why people behave the way they do while under its influence. Like explaining color to a blind man. Len loves deeply, fucks like a champ, but cupid's arrow is never going to touch his heart. Mick's very happy he never fell in love with Len; that obliviousness would've gotten old after a while. No, they work far better as partners.

Being partners doesn't mean he's not going to make Len pay.

"I think we're gonna visit the Flash again," Mick declares. 

Len looks appropriately cautious. "Oh?"

"Oh, yeah," Mick says. "Need to keep him friendly, right? So we're gonna bring him a nice guest gift. He likes food."

"So you'll make him something?"

Mick smiled broadly and put his hand on Len's shoulder. "We," he corrects him. " _We_ are going to make him something."

Mick loves both goulash and French Onion soup, but he doesn't make either of them all that much because of the ungodly number of chopped onions they require. For a Flash-sized portion, Mick obtains a whole bushel. Maybe two. 

Len looks upon the shape of his fate and whimpers.

Barry invites Mick in again; it's just him this time, Caitlin and Cisco both out on some errand, so Mick sticks around to keep him company and help make a dent in the food.

They end up talking. Mick wouldn't have thought they'd have much in common, but it turns out that having a hearty appetite is a surprisingly good starting point. Somehow that branches out into comparing and ranking cities' culinary specialties, which segues into sports teams. Turns out they like some of the same teams, or at least they both agree that certain teams are the devil and certain coaches both incompetent and blind, which amounts to the same thing.

It's oddly pleasant, and Barry eats his dinner at half-speed, still blurring but slow enough that they kill a few hours that way. 

Mick leaves feeling strangely satisfied.

Len glares at him through red-rimmed eyes when he gets home, and that just makes it all better. 

Mick'll consider forgiving him now.

\-----------------------------------

The third and fourth times are Len's fault as well, but in a different way.

Mick makes the mistake of mentioning that he had a nice chat with Barry. He doesn't realize what Len's up to the first time, when Len shows up with five gigantic bags of rice and a request for paella. 

Mick eyes the rice bags and does a quick bag-to-paella calculation. "You'll explode," he says flatly. 

Len rolls his eyes. "I figure we'll invite Barry," he says. "It's the playoffs of that event you were talking about with him, right? Or one of them?"

"It's the World Cup, you _heathen_ ," Mick says. But he is rooting for Spain this year and paella would be thematically appropriate. It's a good dish to make in large quantities, provided you had enough saffron and seafood to make it worth your while. He hums thoughtfully. If he made Len go and get some cod as well, they could have buñuelos de bacalao on the side. 

Len goes shopping for ingredients willingly enough, which Mick should have realized was a red flag. As it was, he was too busy having a shouting match in three different languages with the fishmongers at the market by the docks because he was sure they had some higher quality fish than what they were trying to fob onto him to really notice. 

Mick is pretty sure Len stole the saffron, especially at current prices, but what Barry doesn't know won't hurt him, and Mick gives him a call (Barry had given him his number last time) to extend the invitation. Barry accepts gleefully; apparently, the World Cup matches for that day coincided with some other, lesser television event that the rest of his family were going to watch instead. 

They meet in the upstairs of Saints and Sinners. Barry didn't even know they had a private room, apparently; he's been meeting with Len downstairs and missed it entirely.

The upstairs is where the gigantic television he and Len had trucked over was located. 

Mick sets out the gigantic bowl of paella and the fried bacalao, but in deference to the sporting event, he also puts out as many chips as he could fry up and some homemade salsa and guacamole. He's not a purist, and anyway, chips are an excellent finger food. 

Barry arrives and they put on round one. Len vanishes about twenty minutes in on a pathetically thin excuse and doesn't come back until it's nearly midnight, with Barry having sacked out on the other couch, snoring loudly, and Mick tidying up the beer bottles before Len can see them and get twitchy. 

"He staying?" Len asks, hands stuck in his pockets.

Mick shrugs. "He's tired and there's no reason to kick him out," he replies, reaching over and covering Barry with a blanket.

"I'm fine with him staying over," Len says. "As long as you like."

"I'll kick him out tomorrow," Mick replies, missing Len's meaning by a long shot.

\--------------------------------

Mick doesn't realize what Len's up to until the second time he's conned Mick into making too much food, inviting Barry and then ghosting on them within minutes. Admittedly, Mick only notices because he's made frybread and meatballs and stew with dates and squash and Len's usually the last one to leave the table when that's available. As it is, Mick spends nearly an hour wondering what he's done to piss Len off and regaling Barry with some of the prior instances of Len's temper tantrums before he realizes - right in the middle of the Aquarium Incident story - that Len has sacrificed partaking in one of his favorite dishes in order to further Mick's romantic prospects.

He's not sure what's more disturbing: that Len has lost his mind to such an extent to think it's a good idea for Mick to hook up with the local superhero or that he only became aware of the idea because he'd started admiring the way Barry's face flushed when he laughed to the point of pain.

"Okay," Barry wheezed, finally raising his head long enough to suck in a breathe of air. "I'm okay. I'm...mostly okay. Keep going. What did he do after the squid got loose?"

Mick finishes the story with the usual embellishments (even the toughest nut cracks when he gets to the part about the bucket of fish and the amorous walrus; Barry literally falls off the table and curls into a small shaking ball on the floor, which should not be as attractive as it is) and wonders for a moment.

But no, Barry's young, attractive. A hero. He might be Mick's type, but it's highly unlikely that Mick's his in return. 

He waves Barry off to one of his crime fighting scenes about halfway through the meal and takes the opportunity to put aside a box of frybread for Len to eat later in appreciation for the thought. 

When Barry returns a few hours later, Mick's set out a beer for him and is flipping through channels. 

"Hey, you're actually still here!" Barry says, sounding surprised. 

Mick's not sure why and says as much.

"Normally people aren't exactly thrilled when I have to run off without explanation for a while in the middle of a - in the middle of hanging out," Barry explains. 

"You're the Flash," Mick replies, confused. "You gotta go, you gotta go. Not like the food won't keep."

"Most people don't know that I'm the Flash," Barry points out, sitting down, still in his Flash costume. "You have no idea how many casual acquaintances won't talk to me anymore after a few too many incidents."

Mick grunts and nods. He can see how it might grow old. Out of lack of any constructive suggestions, he offers Barry the beer. Barry accepts with a wide smile.

They spend the rest of the evening with Barry retelling that day's battle and Mick being generally complimentary, which comes easy enough (he demands a demonstration later on of the lightning toss, which Barry is happy to agree to). It's nice. Pleasant. Enjoyable.

Mick wouldn't mind doing it again.

Good thing he saved Len the frybread; the little bastard would expect a thank you otherwise. 

\------------------------------

Now that he's decided to torture himself with more of Barry's company, Mick starts issuing regular invitations and exerting himself: curries and piles of fresh, warm naan, fried chicken and dumplings, homemade pizza. Sandwiches made in bulk and left in the fridge at Saints so that Barry can buzz in and grab one while patrolling. Cakes, of course - Mick seizes on the opportunity to finally perfect a few recipes that he'd been wavering on, now that he has an eager and insatiable audience to devour his failures. 

After a few months of this, Len walks up to him and says, "Mick. You know how I said I was okay with this?"

"Yeah?" Mick says warily. He values Len's opinions and he'd thought he'd liked Barry...

"I'm still okay with Barry," Len assures him. "And with you-and-Barry. Especially if it means more of your cooking that I incidentally benefit from. But I'd be _more_ okay if you moved into the more explicit you-and-Barry territory, if you get what I mean. The tension is killing me."

Mick rolls his eyes. "I'm not his type."

Len puts a hand on his shoulder. "Mick," he says solemnly. "You're everybody's type. Except Sara, but that’s just ‘cause she’s sworn off men this week. Listen, the kid comes over practically once a week, and it ain't just because you're feeding him. Ask him out."

Mick thinks about it. He'd say he was worried about ruining their casual friendship, but honestly, after some of the stories Barry's told him about his history with Iris, if Barry can't get over someone having an unrequited crush on him, they're going to need to have a long chat about hypocrisy anyway. 

"Fine," he says. "When should I ask him?" For someone with no romantic inclinations, Len gave excellent love life advice. Mick suspected it was due to his love of dramatic gestures. 

Len tilts his head and hums like he's thinking about it, like he didn't have a plan all prepped before he even approached Mick. "Invite him and his friends to the July 4th party and ask him there," he says.

Mick doesn't know why the date would make a difference, but he agrees.

The Fourth of July is Mick's favorite holiday. Not only does Len always find the best fireworks and a valid excuse to use every single one of them, they also set up a series of giant grills on the roof and line a pit for a bonfire they'll start later, when it gets dark, so that people can toast marshmallows. They invite the whole neighborhood - fellow criminals, bartenders, barflies, gangsters, prostitutes, shopkeepers, warehouse owners, warehouse squatters, the works. They've been doing this for a few years now, on the roof of the warehouse adjoining Saints; they've gotten something of a positive reputation for it.

Mick has a long chat with his favorite butchers in the city about increasing the order amount (he swears they beam with dollar signs appearing in their eyes when they see him coming) and set up to work. He gets racks of ribs and thick cut steaks, moist brisket and hamburgers and hot dogs and bacon, slabs of chicken breast and thighs and wings honey-glazed and dripping with sauce, lamb chops galore and a few legs of lamb large enough to kill a man, and even a whole beef tenderloin, large enough to feed twelve people, glistening and dripping with its own juices, rubbed in spices.

They drag the grills into a proper configuration and Mick's in the center of them, enjoying the summer heat on his bare shoulders - wearing a shirt in this weather surrounded by grills would be inviting heatstroke, and it's not like he's all too worried about acquiring some additional burns. The tables they've had set up are already groaning with food by the time people start arriving.

At one point Len swans by with a hell of a smirk, dragging along a dazed looking Barry. Mick frowns. "Who roofied him?" he asks.

"No one!" Barry yelps. "I was just distracted. By looking. At the meat! All the meat. On display. You're - _it's_ very attractive."

Mick understood literally none of that. "You want some burgers?" he asks instead.

"Your words are like music to my soul," Barry says. "I'm just going to sit here and eat."

"Normal speed," Mick reminds him.

"Oh yeah, no way am I missing dinner and a show," Barry says fervently, but he picks a spot right by the grills that's a terrible vantage point for watching the fireworks or the bonfire, and at any rate those don't start until later.

It's not until Mick sees Len cackling into Lisa's shoulder and her giving him a thumbs up that he twigs as to what, exactly, constitutes the show. He smirks. Maybe he was wrong about not being Barry's type.

"Hey, Barry!" he calls, clambering out of the grill station. He's made enough for ten Flashes; they should be good for the moment. 

Barry looks up at him and beams, which is a very good look on him. Mick's never had much luck with words - that's Len's game - so he just steps forward and plants a kiss on him. 

Barry responds eagerly enough. When they break apart, both smiling uncontrollably, Barry says happily, "I _thought_ that those were dates, but I couldn't be sure."

"You probably figured it out faster than I did," Mick says fondly. He always liked the smart ones. 

"Of course he did," Len drawls from where he's - is that a _camera_? Mick is going to kill him. "Going fast is kinda what he does."

Yep, Mick is going to kill him. He'll thank his ghost for hitching him up once he's done murdering him and hiding his corpse somewhere.

Barry loops an arm through Mick's and grins wickedly up at him. "I dunno," he says thoughtfully. "I can think of some other things on my to do list."

Okay, so maybe he's not killing Lenny today.


End file.
